Beacon tower
by sepencil
Summary: U.S.C.M's engineer-investigation team is sent to fix a malfunctioning beacon tower, located on a snowball planet, Delta Harvin. Chief engineer Human, Stephen, Head investigator Avali, Nahii and Assistant engineer Glitch, J, find out that getting back alive is not that easy. Rated T for indirect violence, suggestive themes and some blood here and there.
1. Chapter 1: Snowstorm

**_This is my first fanfic. It went better than I expected. However, I am still beginner, so reviews, explaining what I could have done better, are appreciated. The story's a bit short, but I never planned it to be longer. Infact, I originally planned it to contain only 4 chapters. Now there may be some typos somewhere, but not anything big (like thiers or dosent, ugh). Also, I made all the chapters before I published this story, so I won't be adding any notes until the last chapter. I hope you enjoy._**

_Delta Harvin._  
_A snowball planet with eternal winter and snowstorm.  
The planet holds important beacon responsible for transmission of information with nearby planets.  
It has recently failed to function correctly, so investigation team was sent to fix it._

_Last updated: 2 Days ago following U.S.C.M. set time standards_

Storming snow beat Stephen's face. Man, dressed in beige cloak covering back of his head, lower half of his face and entire torso, was the chief engineer of the team. He was wearing a breathing apparatus that was put onto his nose and into his mouth.

Walking beside him was Nahii, a head investigator and a fluffy nomadic raptor-with-feathers-thing - Avali. He was a bit smaller than Stephen and his fur was white, while his feathers were dark grey. He wore big black scarf on his neck. A black trench coat covered most of his legs and torso. He also needed to wear breathing apparatus, due to atmosphere and air being incorrect for him.

In front of both walked J. Glitch was more like a walking GPS than a robotic engineer. His skin was made of grey shiny metal and he wore winter coat and hat, with antennas on both sides as decorations. He directed the team towards the malfunctioning beacon.

They all were heading to north, pushing against the storm.

Delta Harvin was a big snowy desert, only with few small grasslike patches here and there. Temperature was around -50 degrees celsius. No wonder why nobody lived here.

"We better hurry up", J said in synthetic neutral voice.

"We have 7 hours before temeprature starts falling. At night, it will be unbearable cold. If it takes about 2 hours, resting time counted, to reach the tower, 1-2 to fix it and 3-4 to walk back to our ship, with additional rest stop, we'll be fine"

Nahii lifted his head. His big deep black eyes examined J.

"Shouldn't we already be at the valley we chose to be our rest area?" He asked with high and growling voice.

"It's just behind this hill" J responded without turning.

Just conviently, because Stephen's feet were hurting from over hour's walk.

Soon all three were sitting in a ring around a portable radiator, a little white cylinder shaped machine.

Even eating was impossible there. J had carried a bag with sandwiches, held inside a thermostatic container, but as soon as they were taken out, they froze solid. Stephen even tried to melt them on radiator, but it made them wet mash. Soon Stephen gave up and just stared at the radiator.

Nahii took a nap. It was suprising that he could do it here.

Stephen spent his time staring into the dark sky. Delta Harvin was so far away from its star, that it was pretty dark, even at daytime. Planet was neither nowhere close to the habitablity zone. Despite that, it hold very basic lifeforms, such as the plants Stephen saw earlier.

Stephen turned towards J and asked: "J. Did you bring any drinks here?"

J rotated his head and answered with plain tone: "No, they would have frozen and broken the bottles, spoiling our equipment"

"Besides, you drink too much." He added with annoyning caretaking tone.

Stephen grumbled something and turned away to hide his blush.

Then he fixed his eyes at the radiator again.


	2. Chapter 2: Tower

U.S.C.M. wasn't only a military group anymore. No, those days were over. It had started participating with other races, to build a better universe. This multirace investigation team was a good example. From staggered military bunkers and colonies, this group had evolved into a galactic network, that trains soldiers, scouts, captains etc., trades with other races, harvests resources, builds communication beacons, and most importantly, takes care of humans. They offer them something that makes them feel more than staggered dust particles around the big universe. Unity.

It had been hour since they left their resting area.

Stephen could now recognize the form of something, resembling a tower, through the thick snowstorm.

"We're almost there", J said with voice that somewhat resembled enthusiasm. J was walking up a hill pretty fast, Nahii just after him.

Stephen was concerned of what caused the problem. It's still pretty advanced technology. Maybe it was cold? Or natural decay? Glitch in the system? Or...vandalism? Stephen cleared his mind. His imagination was running too wild. Whatever it was, it would be easy to fix, right?

Well, it was not like that.

Nahii whispered something incoherent and stood still while looking up to the tower.

Stephen walked beside him and stopped while J continued to walk towards the tower.

30 meters tall tower was crooked. The ground underneath it had collapsed. Most of the antenna discs were hanging or missing.

All three stared at the tower.

"It was a earthquake", Nahii said confidently. "All this ground here, collapsed", he told while jumping down into a little bay. He crouched and knocked the ground. "Hear? Hollow. I can tell that there's a cave below us."

Stephen didn't actually hear anything, maybe it was the fact that Nahii heard better than him.

Man looked around with his hands under his cloak. "We can't fix this tower alone. We must report to the base". Nahii flapped his "wings" while climbing up from the bay.

Stephen felt uncomfortable. This feeling got bigger and bigger as seconds passed. He stood back few steps.

It was quiet.

Nahii and J were standing still. Avali tilted his head questioning. His fours ears were twitching.

Stephen frowned.

Did he hear something? J noticed Stephen's anxiety and sharpened his started to neevously look around.

Stephen heard something very low, coming from below.

J suddenly turned towards Stephen and Nahii. He yelled with loud alarming voice: "Run! Get away from here! I sense earthquake!"

The tower started to shake.

Stephen watched in amaze as ground around it shook and fell underground with a mighty roar. The tower descented entirely under the ground.

In no time, ground around J fell apart. Stephen woke up from his trance and panicked: "No! J!" He reached his hand forward, but wasn't quick enough. He watched helpless as J fell swiftly into the abyss below.

Ground under Stephen tilted and he tripped. He saw with edge of his vision that Nahii was in the same sticky situation.

In the next second he was falling down, with masses of ground and snow, into the darkness below...


	3. Chapter 3: Crushed

The rumble had calmed down.

Stephen couldn't see anything, he couldn't move, he felt empty.

He didn't even know if he was alive.

He breathed deeply.

"Am I stupid or something? If I can breathe, of course I am alive!" He thought to himself. He tasted the taste of blood inside his mouth.

Luckily, his air canisters that fueled his breathing apparatus weren't on his back, otherwise they would have been squashed and he would be most likely dead.

He tried wiggling his left arm.

Nothing happened.

Then he tried to wiggle his right arm. Firstly, nothing happened, but after minute or two, he had made it a small space to move around. He then proceeded to smack his hand around this small space. After long minutes of hitting walls of this small space, his arm broke free from under a big heap of snow and dirt.

Next thing he would have needed to do was to dig his whole body out from under the mass of ground.

He had dug for hour or something, he didn't remember. His right arm was aching. And the only fruit of his work was that his face was uncovered.

"This is hopeless", he blurted.

Chief engineer gave up. He hit the ground with his fist and formed twisted sad look on his face.

"J is dead...Nahii is dead..." he sobbed.

He could uncover himself with that pace, but question was: could his air canisters last so long? And even if they did, could they last until he made it to the surface and from there to the ship. But getting out from here was unlikely. There were no promises that any of these different caves led to the surface.

Paralyzed from all these crushing facts, he let his face to fall against the ground.


	4. Chapter 4: Call for help

Nahii made painful squeky sound.

His internal built-in health investigation system flooded his mind with various alarm messages.

He was crawling forward. He squinted his eyes and growled.

Nahii's bottom half of the left leg was detached, terrible bloody cut. It had happened during the time he fell underground.

He proceeded to crawl forward. There was a purple blood trail following him.

He was in dark tunnel, with cave entrances along the walls. He crawled forward with increasing interval each time.

"I don't want to die", He squaked in his native language.

Trained investigator had been told what to do in this situation, but he was trying too hard to survive, so he couldn't organize his thoughts.

"Stephen! J!" He screamed desperately.

"Help!" He screamed again.

"Help...", his voice fell.

He looked at the ground. He grabbed it and again, pulled himself forward.

It was certain to him: he could not make it out from here alive.

As he gathered strenght to pull himself forward again, his upper right ear picked up sound.

He lifted his head.

Footsteps. He heard footsteps. He turned his head right.

"That sound came from that cave", he thought to himself, in a bit of surprise.

Shortly after, he recognized form of something humanoid walking towards him. It had one glowing blue eye.

"J?" Avali questioned.

As the humanoid came closer, Nahii saw, that it was J. J was in worse condition than Nahii itself. J's right arm was missing entirely, with wires and such hanging loose from shoulder. His left foot was bended in abnormal angle. His face was mangled: right part and the top of his head were squashed, and his right eye was broken, with no light.

J made a distorted synthetic sound and leaned toward. Apparently he could no longer speak either. He picked up Nahii with his only arm and started carrying him.

Nahii was touched from the fact that J was ready to do anything for the survival of the team. They walked around in caves while Nahii shouted out for Stephen.

His voice echoed around.


	5. Chapter 5: Journey

Stephen lifted his head from the ground. His face was covered in small ice crystals.

"Am I hearing things?" He thought doubtingly.

He heard his name again.

No, this was a real deal.

"Help! I'm here!" He shouted coarsely.

"Someone, help me!"

After a time being, that felt numbing and long, he saw J carrying Nahii, coming from a nearby cave.

"Down here!" He yelled.

Nahii turned his head and grinned revealing his sharp terrifying teeth. "Stephen? Stephen!" He said with high pitched voice.

Stephen was happy to see his crew, even though both of them were in bad shape.

"You would not believe how much I missed you both!" Stephen said genuinely as J laid Nahii to ground. Stephen looked at the cut leg. "Your leg...", Stephen said quietly. Nahii looked at Stephen. His eyes reflected pain.

"I'll do my best to ease it as I get out from here", Stephen said pointing towards the heap of snow and ground lying on him.

Crew started to dig Stephen up, Nahii with his both arms and J with his only one.

After a while, Stephen was sitting next to Nahii, taking care of his cut leg.

"That'll do for now", Stephen said setting his hands to his hips.

Nahii's left leg was wrapped in black, now purple tinted piece of cloth, torn from his scarf.

"That costed me alot." Nahii said grudgingly. "2000 pixels, finest quality of silk!" He said while spreading his arms around.

"Cheap price to save your life", Stephen joked.

First time in the journey, both laughed.

J made a distorted digital sound and pointed somewhere with his finger.

As if both understood, Stephen grabbed Nahii from his shoulder and supported him as they followed J.

There were dark caves, caves with some form of light. Big caves, small caves. Stephen actually took time to admire beautifullness of these different caves.

Some caves had giant icicles that were as long as 4 meters. One cave was entirely turquoise, with weak light coming through the icy roof.

One time they had to walk on a narrow sidewalk with ravine atleast hundred meters shallow next to them. And shortly after they were walking in icy tunnel with small stream of liquid running beside them.

After a long journey underground, they found a hole in the roof, which led to surface.

J and Stephen helped Nahii to climb the wall. Eventually, Nahii got to the setting sunlight of Delta Harvin. He called out and Stephen started to climb. It was pretty hard to get good grip on icy wall.

When he was around halfway there, he heard as J made awful sounding distorted sounds.

Stephen remembered last time when J spoke with that tone - it was the last time when he spoke to them for real. He quickly grabbed Nahii's arm and reached out for climbing J.

He was just in time when ground below and around collapsed, revealing dark abyss below. Stephen was hanging from Nahii's arm and holding J from his neck.

"Nahii! Pull us up!" Stephen yelled. J must have weighted around 100 kilograms, he was so heavy.

Nahii growled painfully "I can't! You both weigh too much! My grip is slipping!"

Stephen looked at J with sad look on his face. He then faced up again.

"We can't leav-", he got interrupted by J poking his arm.

Stephen looked back at J who now pointed his head with his finger.

Glitch pressed a button somewhere around his neck and his mangled head opened. There was a hard drive encapsulated in steel. J grabbed around Stephen's waist and made a begging sound.

"We'll find you a new body, I promise", Stephen said and unwillingly, grabbed the hard drive and pulled it off. Light in J's only working eye disappeared and his grip on Stephen fell loose.

Stephen was forced to see again as J fell down to the darkness.


	6. Chapter 6: Cruiser

Nahii pulled Stephen up from the hole. Avali was so exhausted, that he collapsed onto ground, breathing quickly. Stephen explained what just happened down there as Nahii rose to sit.

"Im sure U.S.C.M. will find him new body", Avali said while holding J's hard drive.

After resting a bit, pair started travelling towards their ship far away.

Night had kicked in with new the snowstorm along.

Stephen had never felt anything so cold. He had to keep his eyes closed so that the moisture on his eyes wouldn't freeze. Nahii even gave Stephen his scarf, what was left of it, though Avali was shivering too.

Stephen's feet were literally freezing, those winter shoes didn't help at this level of temperature. Stephen even thought that his average body temperature had decreased a bit.

Storming snowflakes hit Stephen's face very hard. They colder than anywhere he had been before. Pair had no time to rest. If they had done it, there was no guarantee that they'll wake up again.

They travelled towards the ship using a compass. If it was dark at day, it was pitch black at night.

They walked a distance that felt infinite, something, that would never end. Both shared no word during that travel, only walked forward, step after step.

Snowstorm beat their faces like before.

Finally, Nahii said: "Our ship's right there!"

It was a small white cruiser-class ship that had wide back and middle but narrow bridge. The ship was around 20 meters long, 6 meters high and 8 meters wide. The ship had U.S.C.M. logo printed on the door, that was just over the side thrusters.

After they got inside, Stephen helped Nahii to get into the cold cargo room, located at the back of ship, before proceeding to increase temperature inside.

He left out J's hard drive onto a desk which held a pile of pirated movies.

The ship was decorated nicely: There was a TV, hung on back wall, with wide grey modern sofa in front of it. There were 4 beds that would extend from floor and roof. The afromentioned desk was next to left wall, had 2 chairs and held a game of chess below it. There was a identical desk on the other side of the ship. Both walls had 2 big UV-reflecting space windows and the roof had LED lights.

Stephen took off his breathing apparatus and commanded ship to rise from the ground, to head for the orbit. And then he sent out a detailed SOS signal to the nearest outpost.

He then turned around and spreaded his arms open, as if he was expecting a hug.

"Home, sweet home", he grinned.

Now he remembered how hungry he was. He took out few sandwiches from the fridge next to a 3D printer and decided to bring few for Nahii with him. He must'v been hungry too.

On the next mission, he would spend some quality time with the crew, after J got his new body, after Nahii got his leg fixed. They would all sit on the sofa and watch intergalactic movie bestsellers such as "FTL express" or "Whom gods could destroy".

Stephen smiled at the thought.

On the way to the cargo room, he noticed red blood splats on the floor. Ignoring them, he pressed the button to open the door and entered the cold dark cargo room.

Nahii was sitting there on top of a yellow-orange tapestry that was spreaded on a cargo box.

"I brought you some meat sandwiches, thought you would hungry", Stephen said kindly while handing 3 sandviches to Nahii.

Nahii took them and examined one. "Just bite, I don't care if you act unprofessionally" Stephen joked. Avali started eating. His sharp teeth dug deep into the bread.

"Medical assistance is on the way", Stephen added and started heading towards the door.

"Stephen?" Nahii said mouth full of food. Stephen turned around and raised his eyebrows.

"Your cloak is dripping red. Is everything all right?" Nahii asked with concerned voice.

Stephen raised his beige cloak off his back. "I need a mirr-" Nahii gasped interrupting Stephen's sentence.

Stephen's entire back was red of blood, some of it frozen. A bit to the left there was a big icicle that had gone through his skin.

Stephen suddenly felt empty and lost his conciousness. Last thing he noticed was hitting the ground.


	7. Chapter 7: Calm

It was quiet. Not too quiet. Quiet in a calming way. Man heard singing of birdlike creatures.

Stephen opened his eyes. Firstly off, he saw everything blurry, but after a while, his vision sharpened.

He was in room that had light blue walls with orange ornaments going in line from wall to wall.

He was lying on a white bed. His clothes were changed into white and clean ones. There was a big bandage going around his back and chest. He touched his face. His breathing apparatus was gone and his stumble had grown.

Window showed off a beatiful scenery of garden with settlements here and there. Next to the bed there was a machine, which was used for recording heartbeat. It wasn't on, though.

Stephen quickly realized that he was in hospital. This however wasn't human hospital, it was something else.

Perfect. He could just lie here, no worries...

J's hard drive! He remembered and quickly jumped out from the bed. Man ran to the door and opened it.

There were Hylotl doctors, nurses, walking down the hall, and with them were some patients looking just like Stephen itself: just came back from an adventure. Stephen standed in a doorway, looking confused and tired. One Avian, wearing a yelloe bandana and bright purple-yellow jacket, sitting in the chair reading a magazine, looked at Stephen for a couple of seconds, and then continued reading.

One Hylotl doctor walked to Stephen.

He was taller than Man and wore bright white coat. His skin was blue and he stared at Stephen with his three purple eyes.

"Good morning, Mr. Arnfold. How is your back doing?" He asked in a friendly manner.

Stephen mumbled something and asked nervously: "Where's Nahii? Is he all right?"

Hylotl doctor smiled and said: "Well it's good to be concerned about friends. You don't get many these days", he stopped for a second and switched to a more serious tone: "His leg was in pretty bad shape. We renewed the bandage and sent him to the care of his own species.

Luckily to him, Delta Harvin is free from germs. Still, you don't know how hard it is to take care of that kind of..." he thought about a correct word. "...different creature."

Doctor looked at Stephen's still concerned face and switched back to a relaxed tone.

"He'll be fine! Don't worry, they'll get his leg back to normal", doctor said while patting Stephen's shoulder.

Stephen touched his back.

"What about my back?" He asked while brushing his stumble.

Doctor frowned a bit and said:

"It's not critical anymore, you can leave if you want, but stay away from work for few weeks", He turned around and took paper from nearby assistant's table.

"This document gives you 3 weeks free from work", he said and gave paper to Stephen. "You are free to leave or stay, whatever you want", Doctor turned around and started walking away.

Stephen looked after doctor and asked: "Excuse me, Dr, did you take something resembling hard drive from our ship?"

Doctor turned around and, while keeping his hand on his chest, said: "We did not take anything other than you, your friend and your equipment and clothes." He said and turned around about to leave, but turned back to Stephen:

"By the way, you can redeem your clothes from washing centre that way", He said, pointing down the hall. "And I'll keep the secret about your...entrainment", he winked, then turned around and walked away.

He likely refered to the illegal pirated movies, didn't he?

Stephen looked after Doctor, confused, turned away and sighed.

Then he walked down the hall.


	8. Chapter 8: Transmission

_Transmission _

_Subject - Signal Beacon_

Investigation team reports that the signal beacon tower has fallen into disrepair because of unstable ground and earthquakes. Data transmission to nearby planets cut. Data transmission groups relevant of it are looking for better location to build the new tower.

Investigation team got into accident involving earthquake.

Chief Engineer Stephen Arnfold got icicle through his back and part of his liver but was taken into Hylotl hospital fast enough and has now taken 3 weeks free from work.

Assisting engineer and head investigator Nahii got half of his left leg cut. He was sent to closest Avali outpost and has now almost entirely recorvered his leg in genetic carement. He will also take 4 weeks free from work.

Assistant J-0156646's body didn't make it out. His conciousness however was taken with his hard drive that Stephen Arnfold rescued. U.S.C.M. is looking for new body candidate to place J-0156646's hard drive in. Possible Glitch freelance manufracturer was found. Price will be paid by U.S.C.M.

All investigators will be awarded with "Excellent Activity and Carement of Colleague"-award when time is apporiate.

_Transmission ended._

**_That's all! I don't have much to say here, other than posting to this site with phone was nightmare._**

**_I hope you enjoyed._**


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